


It's a Long Way Home

by tazure



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, that might be a bit of a stretch but it's melancholic anyway, theres sloppy makeouts in this one lads we're moving on up in the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 06:10:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12811326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tazure/pseuds/tazure
Summary: Ryan considers leaving the crew. Gavin tries to talk him out of it.





	It's a Long Way Home

**Author's Note:**

> will they kiss??? yes.

He finds him where he expects to: on the roof, a cigarette in his hand, staring at the start of a sunset in the distance. Gavin wraps his arms around himself as he comes to stand next to him, watching him chew on his cigarette for a few minutes. He's not sure if Ryan's noticed him, or if he's going to, and then, suddenly, he offers him the pack of cigarettes in his hand.

Gavin glances at them, and up at him, and takes one, without a word, bringing it unlit to his lips as Ryan tucks the box back into his jacket pocket. In his mind, Ryan leans in with the lighter, one calloused hand held up to protect the flame from the wind, knuckles brushing Gavin’s cheek as he breathes in, and they stay like that for a few moments, until the cigarette finally lights. Ryan looking down at him, face lit up from below, bundled up against the cold and the coming rain, skin glowing in the street lights and dying sunlight and flickering lighter.

Ryan doesn’t offer to light his cigarette for him. It seems to take him a moment to remember it needs to be lit at all, handing the lighter off to him, an afterthought, staring out at nothing somewhere near where the sun is sinking into the ocean. Gavin takes the lighter without a word and lights the stupid thing himself.

“It’s cold,” he says, when the nicotine has started to soothe his frayed nerves. The sun’s barely a wisp of pink-orange light hovering somewhere over the water now, and the wind’s starting to pick up, bringing the chill of the ocean with it. Gavin tucks his balled fist under his arm to keep his fingers from going numb, his other hand clutching his cigarette stiffly.

Ryan brushes his thumb over the end of his cigarette absently, knocks some of the ash off the tip and brings it to his lips again. From this angle, Gavin can’t see his face, but he can make out the dull glow that lights up his fingers as he breathes in. The jacket hides the motion of his shoulders, his chest rising, that implication that Ryan is a living, breathing human person, but the embers, fueled by his desperate gasp of smoke and nicotine, desperate to feel something that isn’t dull and aching and tired, give him away.

Gavin chews on his cigarette and figures he shouldn't project so much. Ryan lets out the breath, a trail of smoke that’s rushed away by the wind almost immediately, and Gavin catches a taste of it in his next breath. For a moment he entertains the fantasy of tasting it directly from the source, grabbing Ryan by the shoulders and spinning him around and crashing into him, all chaos and wanting and finalized expectations. The culmination of God-knows how many weeks and months of longing.

He pretends that he knows that this thing they have is two-sided. That Ryan is standing there, thinking the same thing, wishing that Gavin would turn him around and kiss him. Staring at the sun drowning itself in the ocean and imagining how his fingers would feel on his neck – cold – or how his lips would taste – like ash – or what he’d do if he was brave enough to put words to how he’s been feeling for so long now.

It's nice. Living in fantasy. Watching Ryan’s turned back and sucking on a dying cigarette and dreaming that he might remember that Gavin is even there at all.

He finishes his cigarette before Ryan, the way he’s breathing it in, like the smoke might sustain him. Which is, in hindsight, an extremely pretentious way to say that he’s stressed enough to burn through an entire cigarette in a few minutes, but he’s feeling pretentious tonight.

He rolls the still-burning butt of it between his fingers and imagines what he might say to Ryan if he turned around right now. That the crew needed him. That he was better off with them. That he’d make better money here, he was safer here, he had a home and a bed and a safety net he could rely on. That going back to mercenary life was cold and unforgiving and would kill him faster.

But Ryan’s a cold and unforgiving person, and Gavin’s not sure he ever really cared about the rest of it anyway.

Stay for me, he pretends to say. Stay because I’m here.

In his mind, it works. Ryan turns around, eyes wide, and they kiss, finally, in the culmination of months of tension. Gavin imagines his mouth is warm and rough and soft, somehow, just as much of an enigma as Ryan is, that his hands are shockingly cold against his cheeks and tangled up in his hair as Ryan clings to him like he’s a lifeline.

“Kiss me.”

It’s not romantic. Gavin’s voice is rubbed a little raw from the smoke, and was hardly in one piece besides. But it’s loud enough that he knows Ryan heard him, even if he doesn’t move. Gavin watches him take another long drag on his cigarette and bangs the back of his hand into Ryan’s shoulder, irritated, until he turns around.

“’sat how you’re gonna treat all of us, then? Just pretend we don’t exist anymore?” Gavin demands, pulling his jacket around his shoulders a little tighter as the wind picks up again. Ryan shifts enough to look at him, unmoved.

“It wasn’t funny.” Ryan tells him, and Gavin’s a little thrown to hear his voice is gritty too. He imagined, somewhere, that Ryan smoked regularly. He imagines a lot of things about Ryan. It’s not like he knows jack-shit about him.

“’s not a joke.” Gavin tells him, pulling himself up from where he’s leaning against the half-wall. Straightened up, he’s about as tall as Ryan is leaning over. “Way I figure it, you owe me.”

“How are you figuring it?” Ryan asks, doing that thing he does with his voice, turning Gavin’s phrasing into a weapon just with his inflection.

“You gonna take all your cash and shite, aren’t you? From all the jobs you ran with us?” Gavin asks.

“My cut. For participating in said jobs.” Ryan agrees flatly.

“You wouldn’t’ve gotten those jobs without me.” Gavin tells him, jerking a thumb at his own chest. “I’m the one that got you lot in the door and-“

“So you want me to kiss you, is that it?” Ryan asks, and he stands up too, bringing his eyeline up with him. “Is that how you take your cut, now-“

“I don’t want to do this.” Gavin interrupts. He’s tired. He’s been tired, where Ryan is concerned, but now it’s too much to stand here and bicker with him. Not now. Not over this.

Whatever Ryan was going to say dies somewhere amid the smoke. He takes another long drag off his cigarette and stares at the chewed-up butt in surprise, like he doesn’t remember smoking the rest of it.

“You’re leaving.” Gavin tells him. “It doesn’t matter. Just do me a favor and kiss me so I don’t have to keep imagining what it would’ve been like if I’d just done it.”

Ryan grinds his cigarette butt into the concrete wall next to them.

“I just don’t want to have to lie there and think about all the things I could’ve said about it that would’ve changed anyth-“

Ryan kisses him.

There’s no leadup. He doesn’t lean in slow, breath hot on Gavin’s skin, fingers tugging at his chin to tilt his face towards him. His hands stay at his sides, one on the wall, the other in his jacket pocket. His lips are lukewarm, tepid.

It’s a nice kiss. Ryan doesn’t half-ass anything. His lips part just enough for Gavin’s lip to brush against his front teeth, and then it’s over. He pulls away, runs his thumb over his lip like he’s rubbing away the sensation, and Gavin closes his mouth again.

“If I’d known that could shut you up I would’ve started doing it a long time ago.” Ryan says, when the silence drags on. Gavin shakes himself out of whatever shock-induced stupor he’s fallen into and looks away, focusing on the street under them instead of Ryan’s lips.

“Maybe you should’ve.” Gavin mutters, mostly for his own benefit. Ryan makes a noise somewhere between a sigh and laugh.

The sun’s gone down by now. The last halo of daylight is still flickering valiantly just above the horizon, but the sky is dark. This deep in the city there aren’t very many stars to speak of, but what can cut through the noise is out, dull and lifeless in a grey sky.

“Will you keep the mask?” Gavin asks, still looking up. He hears Ryan shuffle somewhere next to him.

“Why do you care?” Ryan asks. Gavin shrugs.

“Just wanna know if you’re gonna drop off the grid entirely, that’s all.” Gavin says. If he was a romantic man, he might have told him that they’d still be under the same stars, even if Ryan was miles away, with a different face and a different crew.

But he’s not. He never was. “Are you gonna stay the Vagabond?”

He drops his attention back down to Earth, where Ryan is leaning back against the half-wall, staring at something Gavin doesn’t think is really there.

“I don’t know.” Ryan answers, truthfully, when he realizes Gavin’s waiting for a real answer. He sniffs and rubs his nose thoughtfully for a moment. “I don’t really know.”

“Just gonna wing it?” Gavin offers, in a tired attempt at humor.

“Yeah.” Ryan says, and nods slowly.

“I’ll keep my eye out then.” Gavin tells him. He rubs his arms, trying to get some warmth back in them. He wants to go back inside. He wants to sleep off today and this long, awful week, to just crawl into bed and be warm and empty for a few hours before he has to confront anything.

But he doesn't know if Ryan will be there when he wakes up, and it's not worth it. He finally flicks away the dead butt of his cigarette, and Ryan turns to watch it fall over the half-wall and down to the sidewalk below them somewhere, out of sight. It's already too dark to follow, but Ryan stares after it regardless, like he has to know where it ends up.

"I think you're being a damn idiot." Gavin says, quietly, hoarsely. It doesn't matter. None of this matters. "There's nothing out there that could be better."

"Than you?" Ryan asks, turning to look at him. His eyes are blue - romantic eyes always are, Gavin laments - and piercing when they want to be, especially from under the mask and the paint. But now they're dull, just as lukewarm as his lips were.

The question leaves Gavin speechless for a moment, if only because he can't find an ounce of mockery in it. Ryan just watches him quietly, and waits for him to say whether or not there really was something out there more important than he was.

"Than the crew." Gavin gets out, finally, and looks away. Looks back out at the sliver of pink-orange above the horizon on the water.

Ryan hums and doesn't say anything else.

"Same stars." Gavin mumbles suddenly, tripping over his own tongue as he tries to stop it on the way out. But what's the point? It doesn't matter. Ryan won't be around long enough to feel embarrassed about.

Still, he doesn't go on until Ryan turns back to him, eyebrows raised, prompting the rest.

"'s the same stars, y'know." Gavin jerks his chin up at the sky and locks eyes with Ryan's shoulder. "Wherever you go, same stars everywhere."

He tucks his hands under his arms again and tries not to shiver.

"True." Ryan murmurs. It's softer than Gavin expected, like he's genuinely mulling it over, considering the repercussions of existing in the same universe as Gavin for the rest of his life. He shifts, suddenly, and Gavin’s too busy not looking straight at him to see what he’s doing, but he feels his fingers on his chin just fine, cold enough to send sparks up his jaw. He has just enough time to reimagine it for himself as electricity, as a connection, and not just that Ryan’s hands are cold, before their lips are crashing together too.

It's awful. Gavin’s jaw is clenched in shock and cold, and Ryan’s fingertips are burning him where they’re holding onto his chin, and their noses intersect in a way that’s almost painful and mostly uncomfortable. It’s more like their lips rub together than a real kiss happens.

But Gavin doesn’t have time to reimagine a slightly different version – one where their lips lock together perfectly and move in sync, and Ryan’s hands aren’t so fucking cold – because he’s too busy throwing his arms around Ryan’s neck and unclenching his jaw in time to nip at Ryan’s bottom lip, and then it’s a mess of squirming to fit together better and chasing after one another as they break off to catch their breath.

He’s panting, chin wet with spit, fingers awkwardly tangled in what’s left of Ryan’s ponytail, staring absently at the empty horizon as Ryan finds a soft spot just below his ear and drags his teeth over it gently, until Gavin’s fists clench in his hair.

The sun’s done setting now. The city lights are coming alive, spotting the road under them with headlights and streetlamps and windows. Ryan’s hand presses against his back, pulling him closer so he can suck at Gavin’s neck.

“The guys’ll know it was you,” Gavin warns halfheartedly, lifting his head to stare at the stars again. Ryan hums something like an acknowledgement and continues what he’s doing. Gavin isn’t in a mood to stop him, really.

The places where their bodies intersect are warm – his chest, his shoulders, the spot on his neck Ryan’s pulling a bruise out of – but the rest of him is still cold and getting colder. He tucks himself behind Ryan as much as he can without breaking the seal, to get out of the wind, and Ryan finally lets go. The spot on his neck is suddenly cold as it hits the wind again.

“You gonna cover it up?” Ryan asks, a few inches from his ear. Gavin shrugs.

“You want me to?” he asks. Ryan snorts and kisses the spot again, and then around it, just to be sure. “’s just a hickey, Ryan.”

“It’s a mark.” Ryan says, like he’s correcting him. Gavin ducks his face against Ryan’s jacket to get out of the cold and Ryan hisses as his nose presses up against his neck. “It’s a brand.”

“You claiming ownership?” he asks, voice muffled against the leather. “That’ll fade, Ry, better do something more permanent if you’re going away forever. Better carve your initials in or sommat.”

“Jesus,” Ryan breathes, and then laughs, breath warming up a spot on Gavin’s shoulder, and Gavin grins into his jacket, “I could just renew it.”

“Gotta be around for that.” Gavin tells him, readjusting as the wind picks up to put more of Ryan between him and the ocean. “Gotta come flouncing back into town to do your upkeep.”

Ryan clicks his tongue in what might be agreement, or disapproval, or just a happenstance of adjusting his tongue in his mouth, and Gavin takes the moment of silence to lift his head up and stare at the stars again.

They’re out in full show now, glittering weakly in the city lights.

“What’re we doing?” he asks, against his own better judgement, combing his fingers through Ryan’s hair absently.

Ryan shrugs, and Gavin’s head bobs along with him where it’s resting on his shoulder.

“I think people call this ‘hugging’,” Ryan starts, with a lilt to his voice that’s too animated for Gavin to tolerate at the moment.

“Don’t.” he warns. Ryan falls silent, for once, breath still warm on Gavin’s shoulder.

“I don’t know.” Ryan tells him, finally, in a voice that’s much smaller than Gavin would’ve ever expected could come from him.

“What made you change your mind?” Gavin whispers, thinking about his distant kiss earlier, and callous indifference, and the thousands of times Gavin’s tried and failed before. Ryan’s fingers bunch up in the back of Gavin’s shirt, and he wonders, for a moment, if Ryan would let him pull away if he tried.

“I didn’t want to be alone.”

It’s unsettlingly honest. Gavin picks at a knot in Ryan’s hair quietly for a few minutes, listening to Ryan’s breath against his ear match the rise and fall of his shoulders.

“So you’ll just give me what I asked for.” Gavin says. The knot comes free and he starts on another. “That’s smart-“

Ryan leans back and kisses him again, swallowing the rest of his sentence. It's shorter this time, less intense, but less cold, and Gavin has to stop himself from following when Ryan pulls away.

"I really wish I'd known that trick sooner." Ryan says, eyes flickering over Gavin's face. Gavin scowls and the corners of Ryan's lips twitch up.

"What do you want?" Gavin asks him, finger still tangled in Ryan's hair, lips still wet from their last kiss. Ryan takes a breath and hesitates, close enough that Gavin can feel him hold onto it for a moment.

You, is what he answers in Gavin's mind. I want you, I've always wanted you.

"I don't know." is what he really says, words running together as the air comes rushing out of him. He opens his mouth to say something else and stops, lips parted, staring at something miles away. Gavin has to reach up on his toes to kiss him again, evidently catching him by surprise as he jolts back to Earth.

"Are you going to leave?" Gavin asks, when they break apart to catch their breath. Ryan shakes his head, and for a moment Gavin's heart leaps.

"I don't know." he repeats, sounding breathless. He leans in to press his lips to Gavin's jaw, and Gavin pushes him off before he can pull up another bruise. "Tell me to stay."

"What?" Gavin asks, even though he heard him clear enough. Ryan's hands get tighter around his waist, pinning him there.

"Ask me. Tell me you want me to stay." Ryan says, voice hushed, eyes glowing. His fingers are digging into Gavin's hips now.

"Stay." Gavin says, fist clenched around Ryan's ponytail. There's a beat while they stand there, Ryan clinging to him and him clinging to Ryan, frozen in the cold ocean breeze, and then Gavin opens his mouth again, hesitantly, heart pounding. "Stay with me."

Ryan kisses him. Gavin kisses him back, drags him down by the hair deeper into it, stretching up on his toes until he's pressed flush against Ryan's chest. Ryan's hand slides up his back, pulling the hem of his shirt up and making him shiver.

They break apart, panting, tangled in each other, and Ryan drops his forehead against Gavin's, so their breath mingles together in the cold.

"Okay." he murmurs. "Okay."

**Author's Note:**

> uhhhhhhh gay


End file.
